The Ball's In Your Court
by coffeeplease
Summary: Post Ep for the season finale.


Title: The Ball's In Your Court

Author: coffeeplease

Rating: MATURE (sex talk)

Category: post-ep for 2162 Votes

Spoiler Info: Everything up to 2162 Votes

Disclaimer: WB, NBC, John Wells, Aaron Sorkin... owners. I just lease and try not to stain the carpet. Lawsuits don't look good on me.

E-mail address for feedback: permission: Sure, just tell me first

Notes: Feedback is much, much, much appreciated. A little funny, a little sappy, this one.

She pulled it out of her bag a few minutes after both of their tired bodies had crumpled to the ground. They sat facing each other, backs to the wall, the long hotel hallway to their right and left. Josh's beer was half-filled. Will had gone to his room to pass out, throw up and weep, perhaps not in that order.

"What's that?"

She tossed it from one hand to the other. Not very energetically; there was only so much stamina and constant coffee could do for a person.

"I put on a rubber band every time I thought we would lose."

"Well, you did lose, Donnatella, so that thing should be visible from space by now."

He took a slow sip of his beer. The wall felt good against his back.

"I was trying to be optimistic. Besides, it was either that or shoot them at the tally board."

"It's good to know that the Russell camp was working hard until the end. Fighting the fair fight and, you know, making rubber band balls."

"Do you think this..." Donna held up the ball in the palm of her hand. "Is why we lost?"

Josh made a face. "I don't know. Was Will making paperclip necklaces?"

Donna blinked a couple of times and refocused her eyes on Josh. She was waiting for it. There had been so many key moments in the evening when she was sure it was coming. But Josh was silent, looking at her blankly and nursing his beer. Finally, she couldn't stand waiting for it to come. "Shouldn't you be gloating, smirking, boasting, bouncing off the walls and asking for the finest bagels and muffins in the land? You know, drinking from the keg of glory?"

"There's a keg somewhere and all I got were those bottles?" Josh glanced at his bottle wearily.

"You know what I mean."

He sighed, smiling slightly. "I don't want to rub it in."

"You always want to rub it in."

"Not this time."

Donna rolled the rubber band ball around her hand a bit, letting it relieve a bit of her stress. "Come on, you've been pissed at me since I left..."

"Let's not..." Josh replied, looking down the hall suddenly and biting his lip. "Let's not go there tonight, okay?"

"I don't..."

"Donna," Josh retrained his eyes back to her. Earlier, he could barely keep them open but now the threat of having this conversation had rejuvenated his batteries. He really, really didn't want the can of worms to be opened and sprayed across the hotel walls, with the tears, blood and guts and everything spilling.

She just kept tossing the ball back and forth between her hands.

He began again. "Donna, yes, I'm happy Santos won and, yes, I'm happy about the V.P. selection and of course, I am internally gloating and bouncing. But we start talking about what happened between us and my buzz is just going to... die."

Donna smirked slightly. "A buzz kill?"

"I can't really bring out the verbal after the last three days. I can barely stand up."

"Here," Donna rolled the ball across the hall. Josh deftly stopped it from knocking over his bottle. "It'll help you relieve some stress."

"Are you feeling less stressed?"

"I'm feeling... tired. And unemployed. And a little bit of a beer buzz."

Josh began to toss it between his hands, using a bit more force than Donna had. "And you say that I have a sensitive system."

"I've eaten, like, two potato chips in the last three days, Josh. Of course I'm a little tipsy."

Wrong thing to say. Josh was now looking at her sharply.

"Josh..."

"That was definitely a buzz kill, Donna. You... you gotta eat."

"How's your diet been?" She asked sharply.

"Fried and burnt to a crisp." That, too, was the wrong thing to say, he realized.

"Great. You worry that I'm going to waste away while you're gearing up for a major heart attack before you're fifty..."

"Donna..."

"A little broccoli, a few carrots... would it be so hard, Josh?"

He grinned. "Well, I didn't have you around trying to disguise brussel sprouts as pork rinds. While the cat is away, the mice do play."

"So I'm the cat in this little scenario." Donna smiled back at him.

Josh blushed. It took Donna a moment, but when she figured it out, she groaned internally. He, however, recovered quickly enough. "We really shouldn't go there either, I think."

"Why not?" The words left her mouth before her brain even had a chance to think them.

"Um.." Josh was at a loss. Why not indeed. "We're out of practice?" He suggested lamely.

"Huh?"

"We haven't really, um, you know... flirted... in a long, long..." He stopped for a moment, eyes glued to the carpet. "Long time. It has been a long time since we flirted, Donna. I think maybe even years, at this point."

She started to crawl over to him. On her hands and knees. Josh's heart was caught in his throat and he thought that maybe this was the moment. The moment that could have happened a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, but never had because... because it never had. She looked damn sexy, that much he could comprehend. He wondered if he should close his eyes and tilt his head or maybe wait until her lips were on his. Then he'd be able to see it and he wanted to see it.

Maybe after he slipped her the tongue, he could start inching his hands down her back. He wondered how many minutes he would have to wait before he could touch her breast. He tried to remember how many flights up his room was and whether he had condoms or whether she was still on the pill...

All academic, he groaned to himself, as she placed her lips on the beer bottle, not him. Quickly, she scooted back to her place against the wall, still clutching his beer.

"I don't think its a skill you lose with time, Josh." She said playfully, as he ground his hands into the rubber band ball. Relieve stress, his ass. "I think we may be able to pick up where we left off in no time."

"Where'd we leave off?" Josh was still a bit out of the conversation.

"I think it was something about you in a dog collar."

"You and your fantasies..."

"My fantasies?"

"Sure, your fantasies, your equipment..."

"You had some fantasies you shared with the class, Mr. Catholic School Girl's Uniform."

"Forgive me, Father, for wanting to see Donnatella in knee-highs." He smirked hardily and crawled over to steal back his beer.

"And the equipment was yours, too. And the East German cocktail waitress."

"Its a stocking thing."

"Really, Josh, all we ever talk about is your fantasies."

Josh shrugged, keeping a twinkle in his eye and his hand around the rubber ball. "Well, my fantasies are probably a lot better than yours."

"Oh, you think?" Donna folded her arms.

"I'm sure." He replied smugly. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You do realize that we are now flirting over the past times we've flirted, right?"

"That's because we have skills, Josh."

"Ah, yes."

Donna picked at the hallway carpeting, keeping her eyes on Josh. "Our flirting is like riding a bike, Josh. We may not ride for ten years, but we never forget how to do it."

Josh took the final sip of the beer. He began to rummage in his bag for another one. "You know what else is like riding a bike, Donnatella?"

"Hmm?"

He pulled out a beer and twisted off the cap. He took a swig. "Sex."

"Well, we wouldn't know if we had any skills in that department, Josh." Once again her brain and her mouth were not playing for the same team.

"Let me tell you, Donna, there is no doubt that I have massive and major skills in that department. Incredible skills. Women have written poetry and pithy missives about my skills."

"You know, I was wondering if you had had some sort of surgery and had the ego removed. Good to see its still the size of Texas."

"My ego ain't the only thing the size of Texas, baby."

"I agree. Texas is the size of Texas, in fact."

"See, I just bumped our flirting training wheels up to a ten-speed and you're still peddling like we're boss and assistant."

Donna smirked at him. "I can ride with the best of them, sweet thing."

Josh set the rubber band ball back down on the carpet. Gently, he rolled it back to her. "Ball's in your court, Donna. Let's see what you've got."

She grabbed it and put it in her hand. "Speaking of riding, did you ever think about us screwing in your office chair?"

Yes. Of course he had. And on the desk, up against the wall, in the visitor's chair, in the unisex bathroom in the basement, in the Steam Pipe Distribution Center, in the Oval when he was feeling naughty...

Out loud he made a strangling noise.

She smirked again, the battle clearly won. "Whose Lance Armstrong now, Joshua?"

He found himself afflicted with Donna's condition, unable to stop his mouth. "I'll throw you one better. I've thought about it in the Oval."

"You've thought about us having sex while in the Oval?"

"Nooo... well, yes, of course." He took a long drink of beer and grinned widely. "But I've thought the President's desk would make an excellent surface to..."

Donna raised an eyebrow. "That would probably have gotten us into some trouble."

"And my office wouldn't?"

"We'd be sneaky and quiet. Although, I'm rarely quiet and I doubt you'd be once you were acquainted with my skills..."

"Uh-huh." Josh realized, perhaps too late, that they had drifted into very deep waters. Uniforms and dog collars were safe ground. Discussing various White House locals where either he or Donna had fantasized about... that was new. Very new and now he had to untuck his shirt.

A move that she naturally noticed. She blushed slightly and tightened her grip on the rubber band ball. "You know what's weird about this conversation now?"

"A great number of things, but go on."

"We actually could do it."

"We really can't have sex on the President's desk, Donna. Maybe when Santos gets in there, but Bartlet would have us in Siberia picking up Coke cans before I had a chance to get your bra off."

"No, I mean..." She had to stop and take a deep breath. Her heart was alternating between fluttering and pounding madly. "We could actually have sex. We could. There's no conflict of interest or ethical dilemma anymore."

He was pounding madly as well, in more parts of his body than he could name. Breathing seemed at thing of the past. "Yeah... we could," he stammered, quickly at a loss. "We... could... tonight... even."

"Well." She tried to think of something to say and found her mind blank. "Yeah. I mean, we both want to, right?"

At her words, he sat up quickly and gave her a deep look. "Has that really ever been in question, Donnatella?"

She squirmed a bit. "No, I guess not. The question is, what else is in question?"

"What?"

Not the response she wanted. She tried again. "I'm talking about the things you don't want to talk about, Josh."

"The things?"

She rolled the ball back to him. "Why I quit, why I slept with Colin, why you dated Amy and so forth."

"I don't know, I don't know and because I couldn't have you. What else?" He practically punctured her eyes with his. She was floored. She was speechless. She also knew that it wasn't that easy.

"Joshua..."

"And, honestly, Donna? I don't ever want to know why you slept with Colin or Cliff or Jack. I try my best to ignore the fact that you did."

"I try my best to ignore Amy, too."

He grimaced slightly. "I didn't make that easy for you, I know."

"No, you didn't."

He looked bashful. "I'm really sorry. I should have... been more considerate, I guess. Probably should never have dated her in the first place. But I needed... to try and get over you, I guess."

Now she was really floored. They were in the ocean, floating where they had never been before. She tried not to be afraid of all the dark water underneath them. "I never... I never guessed that. I never thought that was the case. I thought you were really in love with her."

He bounced the ball on the carpeted floor. "So did I. But I wasn't."

"Obviously, I wasn't in love with Cliff or Jack or Colin."

"It wasn't all that obvious to me." Josh looked up at her painfully.

"I probably should have been more considerate, too."

"Were any of those guys..." He swallowed loudly. "...an attempt to get over me?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Josh bounced the ball a few times and they listened to each other breathe. In and out. The hotel beneath and above them was very quiet. Everybody staying there was at the convention or, by now, at one of the many post-convention parties.

"Did it ever work?" He asked, almost whispering.

"No. Did it work for you?" She felt lightheaded.

"No," he replied, holding the ball so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.

He put the ball down and grabbed her eyes instead. They didn't nod or signal each other but they both quickly leaned across the hall, on all fours, to fuse their mouths together. It was simultaneous and done without thinking. Josh shut his eyes before their lips met and Donna raised her hand to cup his cheek.

"Where's your room?" She whispered when they parted.

"It's up a few floors. I don't want... to pressure you into anything, Donna."

"You're not."

"I mean..." He held her face and looked at her deeply. "I know we still have a lot to talk about. You know, the things I don't want to talk about, but we need to."

"I know."

"I mean..." He kissed her again quickly. "This can't just be a one-time thing. It can't be."

She was relieved. "I know that, too."

He had never looked more vulnerable to her or more boyish. There was nothing smug, no finest bagels or kegs of glory. "I mean, Donna, I already lost you once and it was definitely not a pleasant experience to have my heart shatter in a million pieces like that. I would like for it not to happen again."

She closed her eyes and tried not to cry. She felt horrible, had felt horrible about the way she left for months now. "I won't do that again, Josh. I won't do that to you again. It hurt me just as much. You've got to believe me."

He didn't know if he did or didn't, but if he was going to get her back, he didn't care. "We have to talk about it. But not tonight."

"Okay," she smiled slightly. He brushed a tear off her face and quickly reclaimed her lips, pushing her gently against the wall his hands began to roam. A few minutes later, he pulled away.

"You know why we can't talk about it tonight?" He stood up and grabbed his bag and hers, quickly putting the rubber band ball in his bag.

"Why?"

Instead of answering her he picked her up off the floor, with strength he didn't even know he had. "Because I am drinking from the keg of glory tonight, Donnatella, my love. Victory is mine, victory is mine!" He shouted.

She grinned over his shoulder. "Its going to be a wonderful night."


End file.
